Pandemic plunge: How Omicron wave has shattered public confidence in PM
Australians’ confidence in the Morrison government is at its lowest level since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has tested positive for Covid. (AAP Image/Lukas Coch)
The Australian National University study of 3472 people in January found only about a third had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the government.
This is down from 60 per cent of people in May 2020 and only slightly above confidence levels of 27.3 per cent during the Black Summer bushfires.
“Clearly the handling of the pandemic and the ongoing wave of Omicron infections is starting to take a real toll on how all major institutions are viewed by Australians,” study co-author Professor Nicholas Biddle said.
Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said the results came as no surprise and the government needed to look forward ahead of the upcoming election.
“You learn from your past and you do better and you understand what went wrong,” he told the Seven Network on Monday..
“You don’t win elections on what happened a year ago or a month ago, or even a year ago. It depends on what happens in the future.”
The ANU survey findings come after the latest Newspoll was released, which showed the government narrowing the gap slightly to Labor, but still trailing 45-55 on a two-party preferred basis.
The coalition remain on a low of 34 per cent primary vote, while Labor’s primary vote has stayed at 41 per cent.
Despite the results from the polls, Labor MP Joel Fitzgibbon said the result at the upcoming election was not assured.
“We certainly do not believe we have it in the bag, we are still three months or more from an election and three months is an eternity in politics,” he said.
“We are entitled to be feeling confident about the next election, but we do not take anything for granted.
Between October and January, the ANU study showed satisfaction with the direction of the country dropped.
The proportion of people satisfied or very satisfied with the country’s direction went from 69.8 per cent to 63.6 per cent.
“One of the potential reasons for this drop … is that respondents don’t feel that key institutions are handling the pandemic as well as they have in the past, or as well as they should be doing given the current circumstances,” Professor Biddle said.
During the bushfires, 59.5 per cent of people were happy with where the country was headed.
The survey is part of the ANU’s ongoing study about the effects of the pandemic.
It found 80 per cent of people thought they’d be infected with Covid-19 in the next six months. In October, only 40 per cent of people thought the same.
